(2) Sat Jul 02 2011 15:59July: Month of Kickstarter:
Back in the late 90s I had a running joke on this website that July was "Leonard Richardson Month", a month of festivals and educational lectures about me and my accomplishments, which (this is still part of the joke, not my 2011-era commentary) nobody attended because the whole idea was egotistical and stupid. Even with something as corny as that, though, I discovered that thinking of the month of my birthday as being special actually did make it a better month.

This year I'm bringing back the "special month" idea, but instead of an obsessive focus on me, the focus will be on other people and the cool things they're doing. Every day this month I will pledge money towards a Kickstarter project and post about it here.

I'll try to pick projects you'll find interesting because I really like the Kickstarter model and my goal is to get you into the idea of funding things that way as well. If nothing really grabs me on a given day, I'll make an investment more or less at random. Because it's July, mamajama, and weird things happen on this site in July.

Today's project is a local one for me: I pledged $25 to cover the production rental costs for "An Economic Cycle Through An Artist’s Perspective", a dance performance to be held in the Socrates Sculpture Park (where I went just today to check out the new farmer's market).

This may seem an odd choice for me. You don't have to know me very well to guess that I am not into dance. I don't know enough about the medium to appreciate it, although I do find the description of this performance ("each segment will represent a milestone that one would experience throughout the development of an idea") a lot more interesting than the typical dance performance description. But, I am really into living in a neighborhood and a city where people who are into dance go around giving and attending dance performances, because that means other people have fun and it enriches the city as a whole. So, this sucker is backed.

Tune in tomorrow for more action! This will also get me back to posting every day, which is something I've really been missing.

Sat Jul 02 2011 16:40Month of Kickstarter: The Backfilling:
My calendar informs me that I should have started this project yesterday. No problem! I've brought Month of Kickstarter up to date by also backing the Kikori Open Source CNC Gantry Router, which pushes my buttons with sentences like "It’s essentially a robot capable of milling complex three-dimensional shapes out of wood, soft metals, and plastics." It's also self-replication-capable!

I don't have a good feel for which Kickstarter projects are likely to succeed, but I gotta say that because of the amount of money they're trying to raise ($23,500), this one seems like a long shot. I don't see how it works unless a few backers decide to theme a vacation around the high-value pledge rewards.

Now, one of the nice things about Kickstarter is that you can back a long shot without worrying about losing your money. But I would like to spend a decent amount of money during the Month of Kickstarter, which means backing successful projects. And I'd like to do it without funding a bunch of projects that are clearly going to be funded anyway. I may end up compromising by diversifying my portfolio.

(1) Mon Jul 04 2011 07:49Month of Kickstarter: Patriotism Edition:
When I was a kid I heard someone say "America has brought the world two great art forms: jazz and comics." I've long thought it's time to add "video games" to that list, and on today's TRIPLE EDITION of Month of Kickstarter I salute all three of these great art forms.

Video games:"The Videogame History Museum", "dedicated to preserving, archiving, and documenting the history of the videogame industry." These people have a lot of stuff and they want a place to put it. What could be more American?

Damn, that's patriotic. Even Sam the American Eagle can't say no.

(1) Tue Jul 05 2011 07:52Month of Kickstarter: A Young Lady's Guide to Treachery and Military Operations:
I've got a lot to do today (all the Findings work that explains why I haven't posted much, plus bonus other work), so this one is quick: Lyssan, a board game that "combines tightly designed euro-style rules with the interactivity and flavor of an epic wargame." It looks fun and well thought out, so BACKED. The $50 price point to get a copy of the game is higher than the $25 I'm typically dropping on Month of Kickstarter projects, but what the heck. Some of those projects won't pan out, and it looks like this one will.

Wed Jul 06 2011 06:55Month of Kickstarter: Decisions, Decisions:
I'm seriously on the fence about "Strange Attractors: Investigations in Non-Humanoid Extraterrestrial Sexualities". When I saw the description I thought: BACKED. But, I was picturing a monograph with an underlying thesis and a consistent medical-diagram-ish art style, and this is an anthology with often cartoony art and big ol' artist statements (and humanoid extraterrestrials, judging from the sample pages!). Plus it's another project where I'd need to shell out $50 to get the book. So I dunno. It's definitely on my short list though.

And so on. A couple more projects today went on my list for a future slow day or multi-project bonanza day, but today's backed project is a project to reissue John Isaacson's Do-It-Yourself Screenprinting. "Whether you want to turn your bedroom into a t-shirt factory or just make a couple stickers or posters for your band's next tour, Isaacson has got your back."

(2) Fri Jul 08 2011 07:10Month of Kickstarter: Tess Tess Tess Tessellations:
"Cookie Connections__Clever Cookie Cutters Cut Clever Cookies". You, sir, are a mouthful! As are the cookies, one hopes. For you see, this project is tessellation cookie cutters! It took me a few minutes of staring at the 3D models to see all the shapes, but yes, there's four stereotypical Christmas cookie shapes coming out of a single cutter, with no waste. (Halloween-themed shapes also being produced.) For reasons I hope are obvious (TESSELLATIONS) I am super excited about this one.

My cousin Camilla recommended "WWJD", a film of a play, being produced by a friend of hers.

WWJD is a feature film following a college student named Tom and his three roommates over the course of one memorable day when they receive a visit from an unexpected houseguest--Jesus. He washes their dishes and goes skateboarding and miniature golfing with them--but for some reason, Tom, the only believer in the house, can't see him.

In other nepotism news, Camilla has an Etsy shop where she sells jewelry and reproduction medieval clothing. Check it out!

Pat said I should back "The Power of the Crystals", "NYC's premiere motivational seminar/rock opera". Sumana, who I just showed it to, agrees! So... I backed the project.

Also from Pat, it's "Raiding Parties", "a card game that takes place in the Golden Age." The Golden Age of what, you ask? The answer is PIRATES.

Non-bonus bonus!: Here are a couple projects I backed prior to beginning Month of Kickstarter, which I'm worried aren't going to make it, so I'm publicising them here.

We are a small bean to bar chocolate making company that believes chocolate making is not only a craft, but also an art. We plan to draw from a pool of artists on a rotating basis to design custom packaging featuring their artwork. In addition, we will collaborate with artists who will create unique molds that will allow us to make one of a kind edible sculptures.

The Gado 1 is in operation at the archives of the Baltimore Afro American Newspaper, where it has already scanned nearly 1000 historical images. The paper has a collection of over 1.5 million images spanning 115 years, though, so there's still a long way to go!

Each building is an individual battle within a war that most people fail to see. When I see a derelict building, I see a war that hardly anyone else can see in the same way. I want to preserve these images of this war between Man and Nature that, though slow, remains in constant flux.

I see a lot of projects where it doesn't look like you can fund the entire project through Kickstarter. Unless you have a preexisting fan base or are very good at marketing through non-Kickstarter media, it's tough to raise the ten or twenty thousand dollars you need to record an album or make a short film. But you can probably get ten percent of that to edit the film once it's done, or press the CDs once the album's recorded. This is kind of disappointing and getting more people investing in Kickstarter projects won't solve the problem, since that will also cause more people to post projects on Kickstarter.

Anyway, the point of this digression is that this photography project only needs $800, which I think is very doable.

Now it's time to indulge in another high-stakes metagame of backing a board-game project for $50 because my usual $25 MoK donation won't get me a copy of the game. Today it's "The Manhattan Project - Board Game", "a low-luck, mostly open information efficiency game in which players compete to build and operate the most effective atomic bomb program." It could be a double feature with Twilight Struggle, or Power Grid, or I'll never get enough people in one place long enough to play this game plus any other game so why bother.

The intended outcome of this project is to develop a small wind turbine that can be built for cheap, and that can be used with more wind turbines to marginally increase electricity output. Some of the parts in this project are still conceptual and have not been built before.

Is that good or bad? Either way, it's a 3D-printed wind turbine, which is hard for me to pass up.

On August 15th, we will have the opportunity to expand into our neighboring industrial unit (with which we already share several interior doors... an architectural match made in heaven!) By doing so, we will be able to split our workshop into a "dirty" space (our current location) with welding, woodworking, metal casting, metal fabrication, CNC machining, and other dust- and chip-making processes; and a "clean" space (the new wing) with, among other planned resources, a photographic dark room, a videography stage, a textile/upholstery station, a proper lithography room for etching/engraving circuits, metal, and screenprinting masks, and about a dozen more studio rental spaces for clean arts.

Sounds fun!

Bonus fact: according to this same Kickstarter entry, Columbus, Ohio is "the Indie Arts Capital of the World, as declared by the Columbus City Council..." [ellipsis in original]

Sat Jul 16 2011 07:09Month of Kickstarter: Sun Text:
Month of Kickstarter is halfway over! I've backed 19 projects (21 by the time this entry is done) and it's time to check back in on their progress.

Two of the projects I've backed have been funded (OpenPhoto and WWJD).

Four of them are chugging along. I'm not going to put up a bunch more links even though that would be the smart thing to do, because this entry is already more weblog than I planned to write today. Just go to my Kickstarter page and scroll down.

This will be a fully featured text editor implemented using the canvas element in HTML5. It will support WebGL for graphics acceleration for visually pleasing but uncluttered scrolling, anti-aliasing and other effects. This is designed not for the wow factor but to minimize visual irritation when working with text for long periods of time.

Second, it's SCI-ARC/Caltech's entry in the Solar Decathlon, "a U.S. Department of Energy Sponsored competition which challenges 20 architecture and engineering schools from around the world to design and build a solar-powered, 'net-zero' house." Bonus: the house looks like your robot pet from the future.

Sun Jul 17 2011 07:22Month of Kickstarter: Milk Asteroids:
Rock Hunter. Studly, closeted film star? No, it's a first-person Asteroids-type game to be made available under the AGPL.

Several weapon types are planned, and rocks will be dynamically simulated so that they can be cut apart, fragmented, and otherwise destroyed in unique ways every time.

In the second half of Month of Kickstarter I'm experimenting with backing two projects a day, since the success rate seems to be less than 50%. Today's second project is Milk Not Jails.

Rural New York is home to 90% of the state’s prisons, which provide jobs in a depressed rural economy. Meanwhile the majority of people in prison come from New York City’s communities of color and their families are forced to make long trips to visit them. The guards union and their elected officials oppose major reforms to the prison system because they fear it will destroy jobs in their community. As a result, New York’s prison system is racist, ineffective, and too expensive. This is not going to change unless we can develop a new economic relationship between urban and rural areas. MILK NOT JAILS looks to the state’s dairy industry – which comprises 80% of New York’s agricultural sales – for a delicious solution to this conundrum.

Mon Jul 18 2011 06:45Month of Kickstarter: In Praise of Turtles:
Dipping into my big list of bookmarked projects, since none of the new projects I saw this morning were as cool as stuff I'd earlier saved for later, later being now.

Every July 4th for the past 50 years our small hometown in Pennsylvania has held an annual turtle race – a fun event that sounds like something from a Mark Twain story. But this year the state outlawed collecting turtles from the wild because they’re becoming endangered. It’s a fun and funny opportunity to see what happens when tradition and environmental issues collide.

Heartbreak & Heroines is a fantasy roleplaying game about adventurous women who go and have awesome adventures -- saving the world, falling in love, building community, defeating evil. It's a game about relationships and romance, about fairy tales and feminism.

You play a fantasy heroine (or hero, if you prefer) whose heart has been broken. She's experienced some loss so great that she's taken up her sword, her tome, her staff, or her wand and walked away from her place in society -- by becoming one of its defenders, fighting back the darkness that endangers everyone.

When a woman picks up her tome, you know it's serious. The game system is based on one of the author's previous RPGs, Wandering Monsters High School (free download).

What does it take to start a company? Volumes of books exist that explore the workings of entrepreneurship, but no one has created a documentary that follows the entire creative process of conceiving an idea and developing it into a product.

Meta bonus: the product is a product about entrepreneurship.

Wed Jul 20 2011 07:05Month of Kickstarter: Kombucha & Dragons:
Here's one for Sumana: Kombucha Party. At least I intended it to be for Sumana. Only after I backed this project did I realize that "kombucha" isn't the name of the tea Sumana likes; that's hojicha. Kombucha is the tea-based drink they sell at Whole Foods. Fortunately, I signed up to get loose-leaf tea, not liters of kombucha delivered to my door, so it should work out.

Fortunately, Dragon Valley won't turn out to be something totally different from what I think it is: a line of organic dairy products made from dragon's milk. It's a board game, you say? Damn! Well, I like board games too. Dragon's Valley has some interesting features, like bringing in mechanics from cooperative board games (pulling useful things out of a pile and sharing them) without being a cooperative game.

Has someone made a bootleg RSS feed of new Kickstarter projects? I find it hard to believe that there's no official one, but I find it even harder to locate an official one. Going to the "recently launched" page every day is fine for Month of Kickstarter, but I don't want to keep doing that, and I don't see any other way to look at all the projects.

We Promote Knowledge & Love is a social practice, community art performance project that borrows the aggressive street advertising tactics of pawnbrokers in urban communities as a vehicle to promote knowledge, self-empowerment, and love rather than commerce or monetary wealth.

'Nuff said.

Fri Jul 22 2011 07:04Month of Kickstarter: Oboe Logo:
Jennifer Ownby's "Oboe Chamber Music Recital" knows how to get me where I live: by appealing to the downtrodden, living-on-the-fringes-of-society lot of oboe players. I played the oboe in middle school band, because I was determined to announce to the world that I was a misfit, and I still have a soft spot for the instrument, especially when it's played by someone better at it than me. Anyway, enough about me, how about we let a real oboist speak:

My program consists of some lesser-known and underperformed, but still very good, solo and chamber works for oboe and various instruments. I'm starting off with Gilles Silvestrini's Six Études pour Hautbois, which is a lovely piece based on six different Impressionist paintings. I'm also doing a fun piece for English horn and Actress by Christopher Berg, called Why Else Do You Have an English Horn? The program will also include the Prokofiev Quintet, Op. 39, for violin, viola, bass, oboe, and clarinet. I've seriously wanted to perform this for about 10 years but haven't known the personnel willing to do it. Then I'll be finishing up with Omaggio a Bellini by Antonino Pasculli, for English horn and Harp.

As a designer, I love making logos. So, I thought it would be fun, and challenging, to do a project with the straightforward concept of creating a whole bunch of different logos for a whole bunch of different companies and products. That's it.

We are working to acquire a new cheese vat to replace the old "gas guzzler" with one that is energy efficient, and that will help us to make even better cheese, to ensure the continued success of a small local, sustainable agricultural, sixth generation, grass based farm.

Unfortunately, my idea that they should allow high-value Kickstarter donors to take surreptitious dips in the cheese vat was rejected.

In 2010, youarethecity created the Field Guide to Phytoremediation, a DIY handbook to cleaning up toxic soils in your own backyard, neighborhood vacant lot, or other urban space. Working with soil scientists, urban farming activists, community groups, and others interested on (and in) the ground, we have expanded this research.

In recent years, I have traveled through various parts of West Africa and had the opportunity to interact and share music with people from different local communities. It was an incredible experience: I had the good fortune to collaborate and perform with many accomplished, local musicians. One finding that permeated all these different impressions was the realization that the ‘Spirit of Blues’ expression is the ‘language’ link between Jazz and African music.

Classical music is in a bad way. Audiences are shrinking and aging. Orchestras are declaring bankruptcy... We staunchly believe that music is not the problem – rather, that audiences have lost interest in the experience: asocial seating, distant stages, disconnected performers and patrons, a stiff atmosphere. Dissatisfied with the fashion and spaces in which most classical music is presented, we want to experiment with new ideas.

I am completing my second original jazz album, “Just In Time” for the Jeff Brooks Quartet. The compositions are eclectic, ranging from depression era, blues, standard sounding jazz, to Iranian influenced beats.

Mon Jul 25 2011 15:43Month of Kickstarter: Broken Puppets:
It's time once again for Backscratching Monday, where I back the Kickstarter projects of my friends with some scratch. See? Back... scratch... moving on!

Due to a shortage of Mondays, Month of Kickstarter will feature no more Backscratching Mondays. But feel free to start a Kickstarter project anyway and I'll see what I can do.

Keep it moving. In non-backscratching news, I backed a print run of small-press science fiction/superhero novel, "Broken".

In a post-war future world where First Contact has been made, humans are colonizing the stars, and the nations of Earth have been united under a central government, Extrahumans are required by law to belong to the Union. When a young man with visions of the future sets out on a mission to define the course of human history, he encounters a devastated former hero, a fascist dictatorship bent on world domination, and the realities of living in a society where affiliation is everything.

I also like wearing pants that fit, or at least I imagine I would, if that ever happened, so I dropped a Month of Kickstarter-record $60 on "Custom Fit Jeans". It feels less like backing a Kickstarter project and more like buying a pricey pair of jeans, but at this point Month of Kickstarter is on drunken, careening autopilot as I try to finish up my Findings work and gear up for the work surrounding the big announcement (still forthcoming).

You've seen how on Month of Kickstarter I've made the tough decisions. You trust me to only back the projects that are right for America. The projects you hope you would back if you had the guts to take on crazy challenges like this one. That's why I've made the call to back the paper RPG "Dinosaurs...in SPAAACE!". Now with game mechanics!

Dinosaurs...in SPAAACE! runs on the Token Effort engine, a tried and tested rules-set that privileges pratfalls over point-stacking and mania over min-maxing. It quantifies humor and rewards you whether people are laughing with you, or at you.

Fri Jul 29 2011 08:54Month of Kickstarter: Fealty:
Well, that's not a very fun Month of Kickstarter entry title. But not much can be done, because I've backed only one project today and it's got a one-word name: Fealty, a "territory control game that plays in a short amount of time but packs a solid strategic punch and game to game variety."

(1) Sat Jul 30 2011 19:55Month of Kickstarter: Chocolate Alphabet:
Welcome to the PENULTIMATE, TRIPLE EDITION of Month of Kickstarter. Let's start the day off right with "The Art of Chocistry", a "virtual gourmet chocolate studio". Don't worry, only the studio is virtual. There's real chocolate.

The world has between 6,000 and 7,000 languages, but as many as half of them will be extinct by the end of this century. Another and even more dramatic way in which this cultural diversity is shrinking concerns the alphabets in which those languages are written. Writing has become so dominated by a small number of global cultures that those 6,000-7,000 languages are written in fewer than 100 alphabets.

Relatively Prime will be an 8 episode audio podcast featuring stories from the world of mathematics. Tackling questions like: is it true that you are only 7 seven handshakes from the President, what exactly is a micromort, and how did 39 people commenting on a blog manage to prove a deep theorem.

And the music project, "Chopin Revolutionary Etudes":
Even though Chopin set out to create technical works, each etude is a beautiful piece of music and the technique is used ONLY in creating a beautiful piece of music. Some of the greatest melodies of all times are contained in these etudes.

This project will bring out all the unique elements of Chopin's Etudes. But it will also teach a lot about playing and listening to music.

And that's it! In about two months, once all the projects I backed have reached their deadlines, I'll report back with statistics, and once the backer rewards start rolling in I'll mention any especially interesting ones.

Although I won't be backing Kickstarter projects at the frenetic rate that obtained during MoK (what with no longer having a well-paying job), I'll keep looking at projects, backing one occasionally, and posting occasional dumps here on NYCB.